Now Reading

[Tails82]

Where I comment on things I read today

[Deleted]

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

So far it's alright, not very far into it yet though.

[Chromeo]

Democracy Kills : What's so great about having the vote?

And for lighter reading :

YOU MIGHT BE A ZOMBIE -
AND OTHER BAD NEWS.

[Tails82]

Currently making progress in Donald Rumsfeld's autobiography Known and Unknown. His main focus seems to be on how conciliatory measures can embolden America's enemies, mainly pointing out the embarrassment of Saigon which ended American involvement in Vietnam. Today he touched on Jimmy Carter and his foolishness, believing he could make arms reduction treaties with the Soviets when they were clearly lying about their military buildup and invaded Afghanistan only a few months after saying they were for peace and detente. Then there was the Iran Hostage Crisis and that was lame until the day GOP hero Reagan got into office and the hostages were freed. Rumsfeld also described his time as CEO of Searle, the makers of the artificial sweetener aspartame which got held up for 6 years by the FDA shortly after they had approved it. Today's reading kind of glossed over his time between Ford and Bush Jr.

[Preventing Google Doxxing]

Do You Like Green Eggs And Ham?

That Sam character is a pretty cool guy.

[Tails82]

Rumsfeld, once the youngest secretary of defense, becomes the oldest under Bush. Talks about making reforms like pulling out old troops from Europe who were meant for defense against a Soviet Union that no longer exists. Wanted performance reviews of civilian staff members but labor unions opposed it. As a result of bureaucracy defense would turn to private contractors because they get stuff done without a bunch of silly legal nonsense. He goes into further minutiae then gets to 9/11. Was in the Pentagon at the time and was so busy reacting and having meetings he didnt call his wife for at least 12 hours. He was impressed by domestic bipartisanship and support of 90 other nations in coalition efforts. Notes that even Afghanistan was smart enough to (superficially) condemn the attacks but Saddam wasnt.

Other than that, read some stuff on NY Catholic bishops opposing gay marriage. And married Protestant priests becoming Catholic priests, interesting stuff.

[Tails82]

Didnt make much progress today. War on Terror begins, challenges=civilian casualties as enemy hides among the crowds and in mosques to make things difficult. Terrorists don't think twice about killing civilians but when US makes mistakes they act shocked and use it to criticize US. Anyone who criticizes terrorists for their atrocities ends up in trouble. Rumsfeld goes to other nations bordering Afghanistan for help. Some pressure from Russia on the old satellite states not to help since they still mad over their past loss. US doesn't want to repeat Soviet failure there and focuses on making ties with locals, training them to fight so the US doesnt get stuck trying to fight like it's a conventional war.

[Chromeo]

training the locals to fight worked so well in the 80s amirite

[Laharls_Wrath]

I still haven't got the all from the library that dorian grey is in
reserved the damn book weeks ago

[thewave]

So I just read my exam project. It's an interesting article, I recommend you to read it.... provided that you understand Dutch.

[Tails82]

Going into Iraq now and the risks involved there. Saddam's history of being a silly and how regime chance was what the US wanted for a long time. Particularly humorous when Rumsfeld quotes Democrats who voted for it and were with it until they flip flipped for political reasons.

[Tails82]

Rumsfeld says Iraq problems were from state department feuds with dept of defense, press leaks. Terrorist tactics of holing up in hospitals and mosques, agitating US troops trying to get them to attack then getting a sympathetic press like Al-Jazeera to report our troops were destroying the places. Saddam's troops were in Baghdad's museum, US waited them out. Press later reports 170,000 items looted from the museum. Turns out to be a complete lie, there were 170,000 items total, many were taken out of the city before the war by the staff. After US troops got in the count of missing items was 15,000 at the most, and that's counting the years Saddam took some of the antiques out, replaced them with forgeries and sold the real stuff. Smear campaigns by journalists in Fallujah, terrorists couldn't win on their own so they hid in the city, used human shields, got their propaganda out to the press which ate it up and made the US out to be evil.

Also read how gay marriage could impact businesses, thankfully it seems like they don't have to put up with it as long as federal law doesn't recognize it. But if that happens, gay couples have to get benefits too under their plans which would cost more for businesses. Law says priests don't have to perform gay marriages (watch them get sued anyway) but there's no protections for justices of the peace, wedding planners or marriage photographers if they want to conscientiously object.

[Tails82]

Abu Ghraib: bad stuff, but dealt with when superiors were informed. Not only photos of the prisoners, but of the guards themselves doing pervy things. Not tied with interrogation techniques in any way. Rumsfeld couldnt make public statements too strongly worded against it, or it could be seen as putting too much pressure down the chain of command and put prosecution abilities at risk. He goes on to say Gitmo is actually a swell place. Better than US prisons, a Belgian inspected it and believed it to be better than theirs too. Prisoners more likely to be injured at recreational activities than during interaction with guards. Many of the alleged abuses were lies made by the prisoners for propaganda and to undermine popular support for the war. The prison was newly renovated and to Rumsfeld's knowledge, not a single prisoner has been waterboarded. One of the "enhanced interrogation" techniques was to bump prisoner meals down to typical army food. More money spent on prisoners' food than the guards' and on average they gained 6 pounds in detention.

Rumsfeld was disappointed at the increase of "lawfare," enemies using our own courts against us. WWII had hundreds of thousands of POWs, and the few cases attempted by prisoners were refused by the courts. Today with around 300 Guantanamo prisoners there are nearly the same amount involved in lawsuits and the Supreme Court has overturned decades of precedent, undemining the executive's ability to make wartime decisions. Al-Qaeda did not fall under the Geneva Conventions since they did not wear uniforms, had no clear command structure and most importantly were not a nation's forces so they couldn't be a party to the treaty. When they target civilians and commit atrocities on their end, they aren't entitled to Geneva Convention protections. Bush still saw to it that they were treated humanely but didn't classify them as POWs. This happened in the 80s when Soviet-backed guerillas were denied protections using similar logic. Unfortunately the courts decided terrorists fell under forces of a "non-international" character or something like that, which was meant to apply to civil wars and makes no sense because this war is international. Rumsfeld notes Obama was pushing to close Guantanamo and give civilian trials to terrorists who aren't US citizens, but he reversed these positions and has kept them open implying Bush was right on it and he had picked the best option available. Rumsfeld also says interrogations are effective and cites that roughly half the intelligence we get comes from them.

Rumsfeld also had problems with Europe trying to take away US sovereignty and the ability to try our own citizens with the International Criminal Court. Also for a while Belgium had a law saying they could charge other nations' citizens in their courts, but Rumsfeld made it clear that he could move NATO's command center out of their country if they didn't get rid of that silly rule. So they got rid of it. With junk like this there's problems like Bush being wanted for war crimes by the Swiss or any other idiots with a bone to pick, even Kissinger was wanted decades later for war crimes in Vietnam. That BS has to stop imo.

So all in all, a pretty good section of his book.

[Tails82]

Hurricane Katrina: like Bush, Rumsfeld attributes delays to the Louisiana governor who was indecisive. In terms of federal response it was the quickest ever for hurricanes, possibly for natural disasters in general. The rest he talks about the troop surge, Iraq's elections and streamlining the military.

imageshack.us/photo/my-images/216/1207koreaelectricitygrikf0.jpg

Rumsfeld's favorite satellite image. When asked by a South Korean journalist why their country should send troops halfway around the world to help in the Middle East, he cites South Korea itself as an example. Why did the US send troops over there half a century ago? So millions could be free.

[Tails82]

Finished reading his memoirs. Notes how determined Bush was not to lose the war in Iraq, and implemented the surge at a time when many of his political opponents were saying the war was lost. And it almost was when Democrats wanted to cut funding. Rumsfeld resigned after the 06 elections because liberals would drag him out to a bunch of hearings and make it difficult for him to fulfill the duties of his office. He believes it's important to keep a firm resolve against Islamist extremism and combat terrorism on an international level. Not trying to solve all a country's problems, but get Iraq and Afghanistan stable and in a good position to work on the problems themselves. Domestic support is also key. Terrorists work to instill a sense of defeatism and try to wait us out. But ideologies can be defeated over time. He believes the collapse of the Soviet Union illustrates this. As more people realize the extremist alternative only leads to further violence, they will move away from it.